 Good morning, and welcome to this. The second meeting of 2017 of the Equality, Human Rights Committee. Can I make the usual request that mobile phones and digital devices are switched on to flight mode or silent place? We have received no apologies for this meeting this morning, so we will continue as planned. Agenda item 1 is a decision on taking agenda items 4 and 5 in private. Are committee content to do so? Yes. Thank you so much. Agenda item 2 is a piece of support and legislation this morning. The civil partnership marriage between persons of different sexes and same-sex marriage prescribed bodies Scotland amendment regulations 2016. Members have a paper in front of them from the clerks setting out the purpose of the statutory instrument. To make you aware that the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee did not have any comments to make on the instrument. Do members have any comments to make? No comment to make on the statutory instrument. I wanted to thank you very much. Agenda item 3 is a substantive agenda item this morning, which is a focus on the Scottish Human Rights Commission's annual report on the third strategic plan. I am delighted to welcome with us this morning in this formal capacity, because it is your first opportunity to do this as an organisation, although we have heard from you many, many times on many subjects. We are delighted to have the Scottish Human Rights Commission with us this morning. With us we have the chair of the commission, Judith Robertson, the head of strategy and legal, Kevita Chetty and the business manager, the commission, Claire Nicholson. We all have a copy of the strategic plan in the report in your papers, but I am going to ask Judith if she would give us an opening statement, to give us an insight into your report and your forward plan, Judith. Great. Thank you very much. I thought I would take the opportunity as it is the first time we have been here, just to say a few words about the establishment of the commission, what its overall role is, and then we can come to the details of the strategic plan and the annual report in the court of the session, if that is okay. It is on the record that we are Scotland's national human rights institution. We are established in 2008 under the legislation that went through the Parliament. We are effectively a body of the UN, part of a global network of national human rights institutions, which are encouraged by the UN for states to support organisations like our own, to support the domestic protection and promotion of human rights. This means that we are considered to be a bridge between the international framework of human rights laws and their implementation domestically in Scotland. We are also tasked to be a bridge between government, Parliament and civil society and to highlight and bring attention to human rights issues in the country. We are assessed against Paris principles that accredited us, based on meeting principles of independence, plurality and breadth of our mandate. We are a status organisation within the UN accreditation system, which means that we have speaking rights at the UN Human Rights Council. That is an important aspect, because it means that we can independently comment and comment on the record of the Scottish Government in that context. As you will know, our legislation provides a general duty to promote awareness, understanding and respect for human rights, and in particular to promote best practice in relation to human rights. It comes with certain powers to publish advice, guidance and ideas to conduct research and provide education and training. The commission may also review and recommend changes to law, policy and practice. We also have additional legal powers to conduct inquiries and to intervene in civil proceedings before a court in certain circumstances. That is the broad context in which the commission is operating. We are one of, as I say, over 100 NHRIs established around the world. We are one of three NHRIs operating in the UK, the Northern Ireland human rights institution and the equality and human rights institution. We share our mandate in different ways, which I can talk about in detail if you are interested in that. We have that status. We value that status clearly. We were established as an A status institution when we originally started, and that was reaffirmed in 2015. Every five years, we submit that process. It is an important part of our perspective as an organisation and something that we work to maintain. Rather than going into the detail of the strategic plan, I thought that I would open up, leave that at the moment and then give you opportunities to ask us questions, which we will attempt to answer. Some of the members have specific areas that they want to explore in their report. I am going to go first to Mary. I want to ask you about the commitment that you make to mental health. When you talk about working with the Scottish Government's implementation group for mental health, using the opportunity to support a rights-based approach to implementing the act. People who suffer from mental health have a huge range of difficulties and problems. I wonder if you could explain a bit more in practical terms how you see that work progressing. The work that the commission is doing in relation to mental health. We have, as you may be aware, made a submission to the consultation in relation to the mental health strategy and the development of the mental health strategy. That submission was calling on the Government to take a rights-based approach to develop the mental health strategy. What that means in practice is that the key part of that, which we think is probably the bit that has been absent up to now, is the participation of people with lived experience of mental health problems to support the development of the strategy. We know that there is an appetite for that. As you know, I personally was working in that environment previous to this post, but also as the commission's role in relation to engaging in the implementation group and a group with the Mental Welfare Commission and Government really looking at what are the key issues that people with lived experience of mental health problems have identified, cared about, and in relation to the rights framework and the right to the highest attainable standard of mental and physical health, what are the issues, where are the gaps that Scotland needs to respond to? In terms of taking a rights-based approach to developing the mental health strategy, it would incorporate increased and sustained participation of people in that. The legal framework around the right to health is understood and is the framework through which we look at the mental health provision in the country. There are good and strong accountability mechanisms built into the mental health strategy so that people can actively feedback and hold the Government and our health boards to account for the provision that people are empowered to actually incline their rights. Within that whole process, we are not discriminating against anybody to participate actively to attain the highest attainable standard of mental and physical health. That process that I am describing of a rights-based approach to mental health is a process that I would seek to see apply across Government policy. It is not just exclusive to the mental health strategy, but that is the one that we have identified. We have made that proposition. We are actually meeting the minister either next week or the week after to actively discuss that. That is a piece of work that is absolutely in progress at the moment. There is more that I can say about that in terms of detail, but... I want to come on to a specific detail about one thing in a moment. Is that something that you see will be constantly monitored? Will you have the ability to change the strategy? If you come across something that is not working properly or is not delivering the outcomes that you would expect, do you have the ability to moderate or change the strategy? No, is the simple answer. We certainly have the capacity to understand what is actually happening on the ground. Principally, we would do that through our collaborations with other organisations. There are very many mental health or non-governmental organisations that have access to the direct lived experience of what is happening on the ground. If the Government establishes a strategy that, from our perspective, we would consider not to have a human rights approach at its heart, our role is to highlight that, to identify the gaps, to see how that can be changed, to highlight the issues on the ground for people. We would do that through a variety of ways, which are part of our overall approach, but we do not have the power to change the strategy. Can I ask you specifically now about individuals who are subject to detention orders for their own safety and how you balance that protection that is put in place for their own safety and their human rights to ensure that they fully understand? How can you influence that? That is quite a detailed and technical question. I am going to come back at it from a more general perspective initially. We have a broad accountability role in relation to issues of detention. Under the optional protocol on the convention against torture, we are part of a national monitoring forum called the national preventive mechanism. Mental health is what, clearly, as people are detained under the Mental Health Act in Scotland and in the UK—that is a UK mechanism—we are part of a monitoring process to understand how detention is being applied and to monitor the track record. In terms of mental health, the Mental Welfare Commission in Scotland would be the body with the principle mandate to investigate and fully report on aspects of detention. They are a member of the national preventive mechanism and are part of that forum of, indeed, 20 organisations across the UK. We have a role to play in that forum. The role that we play in that forum is to bring those human rights indicators into play. Clearly, there is a discussion and there are practices within the law, the legal framework within the Mental Health Act in Scotland, which currently allow decisions to be made in relation to people's detention under a monitored process. There are protections built into the current act. However, the Mental Welfare Commission, I know and we would agree with that, has said that the act, the Mental Welfare Act in Scotland, needs to be reviewed in order to be compliant with the Convention of the Rights of People with Disabilities. We would agree with that perspective. One of the key issues that we would highlight in relation to that is the emphasis that is given to supported decision making within the processes that are used to detain people. That just does not apply to detention, which is the extreme end of the mental health provision, but to decisions right the way through the route of people's care and treatment. At the moment, we have a system of not supported decision making. We basically give the power for somebody else to make the decision on behalf of people's treatment. We believe that there are processes that could much more strongly be put in place to ensure that, instead of decisions being made on people's behalf without them being involved in it, we could much more proactively engage people in processes of decision making to the full degree of the capacity that they actually have. There is a whole range of issues around detention who decides how that decision is taken. Currently in Scotland, some of the capacity issues around the actual processes of detaining people are aware of the shortage of provision of mental health officers, for example, throughout local authorities in Scotland. That is a key issue that we have highlighted. Those are issues that we are alert to. We bring attention to through a range of processes, including through our treaty monitoring processes and through the national preventive mechanism that we are part of in the UK. Will you be involved in the review of the Mental Welfare Act? If that happens, we would expect to be. We will be directly involved in whether we submit evidence in relation to it. Will you be able to feed on to it? Absolutely, yes. Thank you very much, Mary. Willie Coffey. I will give us a flavour of some of the key achievements and successes that your organisation has had, perhaps in the last year, and how you or the public indeed look at your organisation and measure the value for money and the success that it gets from the endeavours that your team put into this whole arena. I will focus primarily on the year 2015-16, the annual report that you have in front of you, and draw a few success-impact examples from that. I will work across a law policy practice frame to give you a sense of the type of work that the commission engages in. Highlighted in the annual report, you will see that we engaged in the apology law for victims and survivors of historic abuse in that year. It was a year ago today, in fact, that that law was passed. I think that the commission's role in the whole historic abuse agenda, where we have been working since 2009, was played a key part in that. We would see that as one of our key successes. Stop and Search is another area that, in the year 2015-16, we were very vocal both to the Parliament, to the Government and to the Human Rights Council in Geneva about the use of non-statutory stop and search. Just last week, we had the guidance published, which will end the practice of non-statutory consensual stop and search, where there is no reasonable suspicion of a crime being committed. If passed by members here, that practice will end later this year. There are two legal, discreet successes where the commission's voice contributed something to those debates. In relation to policy, you will see from the annual report that we reached into a really broad range of settings and delivery settings where policy is designed and delivered on the ground, training over 100 officers in Police Scotland in terms of how they embed human rights in their decision making, independent prison monitors, the NHS and the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman, to look at complaints mechanisms, the Mental Welfare Commission staff, how they embed human rights in their decision making. We worked in a whole range of delivery settings to see how human rights could be put into practice. Moving into practice and culture, in that year, there was a bit of a change in the commission's focus on economic, social and cultural rights, and we were looking more concretely at how human rights relate to issues of poverty, the right to an adequate standard of living, right to housing, right to health, etc. We did a lot of work in that area. I think that that is part of changing the terms of the discussion in Scotland about what human rights are all about and really seeing that in a more holistic fashion across the whole range of rights from civil and political to economic, social and cultural. We held a number of awareness-raising, profile-raising events around that in the year 2015-16, a large innovation forum, a number of freedom of Scotland round tables looking at issues like human rights budgeting, integrating human rights within our national performance framework, aligning that with the Sustainable Development Goals. There was a focus in that year, particularly on economic, social and cultural rights and changing the debate in that way. We also continued on with our housing project, which many of you are familiar with, looking at the right to adequate housing. That was another, in terms of practice and culture, shift of the commission. It is very difficult for us in terms of quantifying our success to always know what an individual level of impact might look at. However, if you look across the range of work that you see there, our hope would be that the impact of that work would be, for example, that a prison officer would have increased confidence that they were acting in a rights-compliant way when using restraint, when using solitary confinement, etc., that an older person would better be able to navigate a complaint system that was human rights friendly, that a younger person on the streets is less likely to be stopped and searched in a way that is unduly intrusive into their rights, that a resident of substandard housing has more confidence to be able to claim their rights or that a survivor of abuse is able to receive apology in some sort of partial closure for the abuse that they have experienced. That is the type of success that we look for in the work that we do in working across that range of issues from law policy and into practice and into delivery settings. Wow, that is quite an extensive set of interventions, some of it directs, some of it more of it influence on awareness raising and so on. Do you see there might be an opportunity to engage with people that you engage with, to help to assess your own performance and to get some kind of sense of feedback into your own operational plan about what people's own priorities perhaps are and groups' priorities are for the future if, say, other organisations, particularly in the public sector, do that fairly routinely, they try to assess externally how they are performing. Do you see a role for the organisation in embracing that agenda a bit more in the coming years? We do. That is a key priority for us going forward. We have done that in the past, so the big research piece that was done getting it right was to engage people directly in questions of how they saw their rights being accessed well or not well. It is not that that is not practice that the commission uses currently or has used previously, but in terms of having a much stronger role in guiding the commission's work, I would say that is a key priority for us. There is one significant way that we are planning to do over the coming year, which is to establish a series of processes across the commission where we will proactively be engaging with people who want to make an assumption about people's rights, but we will be asking questions about it because there is a job to do. It is one of our priorities to really help people to understand what human rights mean and what that means for them in their own context. The rights framework provides plenty of scope for people to look across the different rights and understand how one might impact on them positively or negatively, and that can be quite a complicated process, but to actually then be able to say, well, we think this is a human rights issue and this is how it is affecting me, that needs conversation, it needs time, it needs dialogue, it needs to raise people's levels of understanding and awareness. From our perspective, as we would be asking government and the parliament, we would be prioritising those groups who are the most vulnerable, who are encountering. We would be anticipating and we know, in fact, that we are encountering a range of challenges in relation to effective realisation of their human rights. That is an absolutely process that we are increasing building in going forward and using to guide our work and indeed guide our recommendations to government. In many ways, your question strikes to the heart of what the commission strives to be all about, because the essence of taking a rights-based approach is, of course, putting the individual and their rights and interests at the centre of decision making and their lived experience, and that has always been core to what we try to live out. In developing the strategic plan, which you have before you, as much as possible within our resource, we tried to reach out across the country and did a number of engagement events with a wide variety of groups to understand the issues that were of importance to them. If you look back across the history of the commission, we have always sought to do that and taken a very consensus-building collaborative approach to understanding both what the issues are, what a rights-based approach is and the value that it brings and adds. We have done that through Scotland's national action plan. We have done that through the research that we have done. Where the commission really wants to build on that now is, again, within its resource as much as possible, to bring in and understand the voice of those with lived experience of the issues that we work on. Again, in the year 2015-16, one of the things that we did was to establish a reference group of those with direct experience of poverty, both to help inform the action plan and to help inform the commission's work. That is something that we want to build on going forward. Thank you, convener, and good morning, everyone. On page 60 of the report, there is a bold statement that says, in powering people to realise their rights through promoting greater awareness and respect for human rights. When you read further down the page, there were three events held between August and September on engaging with 100 individuals or organisations. Do you think that adequate engagements with communities or organisations around individuals across Scotland? Can you expand on what those groups are? I alluded to that potentially in my previous answer. Is it sufficient, the real answer? No. We would love to engage further, to do more, to speak to more people, to address more issues. I think that we have to say that up front. The consultation itself in relation to our strategic plan, we reached out as far as possible, going from Shetland to the borders, also reaching out through social media and other means. Really, it was a building on the work that the commission has done that is, as I say, core to the way in which it functions. We drew on those views, but through all of our work and through the partnerships that we build with a range of organisations and civil society organisations, the commission is continually responding and responsive to the issues of people in Scotland. It is core to the way in which we try to work. That is part of the process, is where I would situate that. Can I give you another couple of examples of how that works, so that it is required to reassure you, but also to just expand that kind of story? Another example would be an example of the commission through our legal officer with a responsibility for developing the human rights-based approach, engaged with a number of organisations who were developing a strategy and a process around mental health, a charter of rights for people experiencing mental health conditions in Scotland. That process, which the commission was actively engaged in, supported and developed, reached out into hundreds of people across Scotland having a conversation, a dialogue about rights, about the right, as I said earlier, to the highest attainable standard of physical mental health. It is not always the work that we are actively directly doing, but it is the work that we are involved in that is also reaching out. That is one example, and there are several of those. The second kind of thing that I want to highlight is, to add to what Cwita said, is the communications work that we have done previously to both talk to a range of audiences, to a range of people, to talk about rights and to engage people in a less direct discussion about rights. That, from our perspective, is something that we are really seeking to build on and develop in the strategy going forward. In order to meet that principle objective of our mandate to promote and build understanding and awareness of human rights, it is really to use as many of the tools and instruments that we have at our disposal to reach into communities and to empower people to claim them. As well as the direct engagement that we have, there is a range of indirect ways that we do that as well, which, from our perspective, are very good use of our time and energy. Good morning, everybody. I should start from the outside by declaring an interest that, before I was elected, I was a past convener of the Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights Together. I also sat on the leadership panel of the Scottish National Action Plan. We, as a committee, have sought to discharge our human rights remit by looking to the various or numerous concluding observations of the various UN rapporteurs. I wonder if the panel could give us an idea of how the Human Rights Commission works with the various UN committees, the rapporteurs, and to what extent the concluding observations shape your own work? We, as a national human rights institution, have a responsibility to report to the UN treaty bodies and we do that across, at the moment, most of the treaties. For various reasons, there are, I think, two of the treaties that we haven't reported on, but in the last year of the strategic plan, sorry, in the year of the annual report, we would have reported on a number of treaties. We consistently do that and then, from that process, take forward an analysis of the concluding observations and are working proactively to work with Government to deliver aspects of that. We can talk in some detail about one particular one, which would be the incorporation of economic and social cultural rights, which was something that was reported on from the committee on economic and social cultural rights. From our perspective, it is a real priority going forward in relation to how Scotland can best deliver an effective human rights protection within the country. It is a key part of our work reporting to treaty bodies and it is something that we are going to build on through that plan and, going forward, I think that you want to add to that. Just touched on the reporting, which is core to our mandate. Last year, we reported to the CRC, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Human Rights Committee on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This year, we will be reporting against the universal periodic review process, which is a state peer-to-peer process. That is the reporting side of it. The question was potentially about the implementation of the recommendations when they come from the treaty bodies and from the Human Rights Council. That is something that we are looking at much more closely in terms of the follow-up for that. I believe that there has been previous discussions with the committee and we would welcome the fact that the committee wants to use them as a vehicle, if you like, to shine a light on some of the key issues that need to be addressed in Scotland. We would hope that that would permeate the whole of the Scottish Parliament in its particular role as a human rights guarantor, because it certainly provides a focus of attention where those recommendations have come about as part of a fairly systematic process of feeding in from the state civil society and us as the national human rights institution. The concluding observations of the treaty bodies permeate all of our work. We certainly draw on them in all of our work in relation to law and policy and we consider them carefully in relation to our other strategic priority setting. However, what we want to do going forward is to ensure that we are doing that systematically and ensure that other actors are also drawing on them, are aware of them, are using them in their own lobbying work and using them in their own priority and agenda setting. That is certainly something that the commission wants to increasingly focus on going forward and we are pleased that the committee is doing so also. That is very helpful. I think that I would probably speak for the rest of the committee when I say that considering when we had the first discussion about concluding observations as a weather vein as to where we should direct the work of this committee to then discover that there is something like 900 concluding observations across the various UN treaties, it is something like drinking from a fire hose to a certain degree. I mean I have my own particular hobby horses obviously coming from the children's sector around the incorporation of the UNCRC equal protection from assault for children being one, but I know that other committee members have other particular favourites and focuses. How do you, as a commission, triage what is achievable, the low-hanging fruit, what we can do tomorrow to make good on those commitments and what is that a little bit harder? You have actually hit on the crux of where we see the Scotland's national action plan playing a role, because part of the thinking behind Scotland's national action plan, it was drawing on best practice of national action plans around the world. National action plans for human rights have been promoted by the UN since the early 90s. A number of countries across the world have national action plans. The key principles of that is that the action plan should be evidence-based, collaborative, participative and monitored and evaluated, not on challenging things. Now, in that collaboration of priority setting, the commission saw that a way to do that was that triaging of the concluding observations and treaty body recommendations. The views of civil society and those with lived experience of the issues and the priorities of Government and Parliament. Where those met would help to set the agenda for Scotland and where the issues that had most traction were. In practice, that has not been a simple process. We are continually trying to build on that within Scotland's national action plan, but that is the vision behind it. The action plan would provide a forum through which to do that triaging, if you like, in that priority setting. That was one of the vehicles for us to set the priorities from the huge reins of treaty body including observations. One other thing to say is that there is a huge amount of duplication within the concluding observations, so you can read some of it. I think that it's now from your question, Alex, you will see the nature of our challenge too, in that we also have to make strategic choices across aspects of both issues and processes to say how, as a commission, we are going to marshal the resource that we have in order to achieve the best, the most impact, the most value effectively for money and further advance the cause of human rights in Scotland. From that perspective, that is one of the reasons that we are focusing and have chosen to focus on the incorporation of economic, social and cultural rights, because we believe that at a level it sits above the whole range of issues, all very real issues, but it enables us to do a number of things to increase people's understanding of what the rights framework actually gives to them, what is for them, because the human rights act to a certain extent mostly deals with civil and political rights, incorporating economic, social, cultural rights in Scotland. To the degree that we can do that within the devolved powers of the government would enable us to have a much more complete rights framework domestically in Scotland that could be used and accessed by our citizens. More constructively, that also sends a real clear message to public bodies and institutions in Scotland to say that the Government and our Parliament are taking rights very seriously. We are taking the rights of our citizens seriously. I am not saying that you do not do that already, but it sends a very clear and strong message to that end. From our perspective, there is an opportunity at the moment, because there is a willingness in the Government to have that discussion, to take that and make that progressive action. There is a more negative opportunity, if you want to say it, because we are actually aspects of the human rights act or under question and we are coming out of Europe, so there is an increased need to strengthen the rights framework domestically. From our perspective, it is not that that then reduces the need to deal with the other aspects of the concluding laws, but it is a strategic way of saying that if we get this right, that potentially could have an impact on all sorts of other areas. That is not the silver bullet that will deliver rights respecting public life in Scotland, but it is an important component. It is one of the reasons that we are prioritising that in our work going forward. Thank you, convener. Finally, I think that that is incredibly helpful, and I am sure that I speak to the rest of the committee to say that I would like to engage with your commission far more over the coming five years, just to help us to still down the art of the possible, what we should be prioritising, so that you are doing that legwork around triage on the concluding observation so that we do not have to necessarily, although we will obviously do our own due diligence, but I think that we are going to be seeing a lot more of you. We are very happy to do that. We see that as part of our role, and the distillation of the concluding observations, and your willingness to engage in that process, and not just actively engage, so not just to be on the receiving end of our wisdom, but to actually participate in a dialogue and a discussion about that. I think that that is really important. You are clearly key actors in that in relation to the Parliament. However, we would also consider that to be the responsibility not just of this committee. The concluding observations have impact right across the committee structure and the responsibilities of the Government and Parliament in Scotland, and so having those dialogues and conversations across the committee structure would also be very healthy, in fact, an important aspect of the Parliament's responsibilities. I do agree with your final point there, Judith. Mary's question and our immediate thoughts were that we need to highlight that to the health committee, so part of our role will be ensuring that we highlight anything that comes up at this committee to subject committees in that sense. We will continue to do that. Annie? That is a more specific question, because obviously it is about spotlighting specific issues and holding to account. We have got the bullying strategy from Government at the moment, and I like the big thinking up out of this, the human rights aspect of it, of inclusive education for people with disabilities, LGBTI, and about the bullying and how that affects people's human rights at school. It is just something whether you have looked at that specific issue or is it something that, because we are obviously going to do a bit of work on it, we would appreciate that input from you on the human rights side for young people. I can offer next week essentially talking to some of the umborella bodies in relation to school bullying. The Scottish Government has delayed the implementation of the bullying strategy following evidence at this committee from a number of young people's groups saying that the strategy needs to be a bit more focused, so the Scottish Government agreed with the committee. We are taking forward that piece of work to start next week. This raises an issue that is important for the committee to understand and something that we grapple with on an on-going basis, which is that of the key in our legislation is non-duplication. Primarily, bullying is not just an issue in schools. I am fully aware of that. As it reaches into social media, it goes much wider than that. I am very aware of that. At the moment, we would consider that to be the principal responsibility of the Children's Commission. It is not that we would not necessarily be able to contribute a human rights perspective on some of that, but at the moment, as again, we are a small organisation that is seeking to marshal our resource effectively, and we have within our legislation this piece around non-duplication. We would not be seeking to not address that issue. We highlight the issue through some of our concluding observations. We bring it into our analysis and dialogue, but in this instance, in this context, we probably would not contribute, because we would expect the Children's Commission to have the responsibility for that. Does that make sense to me? There are a number of organisations that we are going to be speaking to in the course of that inquiry anyway, to really get to the bottom of it and see where we can make some changes. Can I ask a couple of questions about your relationship with the Equal and Human Rights Commission and some of the other organisations? You mentioned your relationship with the UN, but where are the systemic parts of that that work together or do not work together? Maybe there are aspects where you think could work better. You mentioned earlier, Judith, in response to Alex, some of the concerns around withdrawal from the European Union. We heard from the Prime Minister the other day that I withdraw from the single market, the customs union and injustice, which has a huge impact on anybody's ability to get recourse to justice should they go down that route. We have had a potential repealing replacement of the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights and now a manifestal commitment for a withdrawal from ECHR 2020. I know that that is a lot, but those are all some of the organisations that you would interface with and where some of the pitfalls and challenges would be. That is a lot in that question, Christina. That is why I kept it off. Can I start with some of the basics of the relationship with the organisations? Okay, great. I do not want to either assume knowledge or give you information that you do not need, but just so that you know, the equality and human rights commission in Scotland is principally the equality's regulator. Its principal mandate in relation to human rights is in relation to Westminster, the reserve powers, the Scottish human rights commission's principal mandate is dealing with human rights issues in relation to the competence of the Scottish Government and Parliament. That is how the simple terms, that is how the landscape is carved up. However, as we will become immediately apparent, there is lots of scope for overlap and scope for concern panning through and simple terms, just to give you two examples. The impact of welfare reform is reserved legislation but has a direct impact on how the Scottish Government, Parliament and public authorities in Scotland actually deal with people who are experiencing poverty and having to access benefits. That is not a simple line, it is not easy to draw those lines. A second one might be issues in relation to asylum seekers and refugees where the immigration legislation principal aspects of it are reserved. As you know, the Scottish Parliament has no competence over it but what actually happens in Scotland to asylum seekers and refugees, there are lots of implications. That one level looks simple but because of issues like that, we collaborate. An active example is a conversation that we are having at the moment, a piece of joint working that we are doing at the moment around a human rights base and equalities in human rights based approach to developing the new social security powers in Scotland. We are collaborating with EHRC and they are undertaking a piece of research in relation to comparative examples internationally of equalities and human rights compliant social security provisions. We had a meeting this week with civil servants in the social security division to see how that could be integrated into their plans going forward. That is a collaborative process. Underpinning that relationship is a memorandum of understanding what we have with EHRC in recognition that there will be instances when, if they are doing investigations across the UK on specific issues, aspects of which are devolved to Scotland, we will give consent for them to undertake that work. A live example of that is a housing inquiry that they have just started looking at the experience of people with learning disabilities and their access to housing. That will include a Scottish component and Scotland will be part of that investigation. Because they are looking at that through a equalities and human rights lens and devolved legislation, we have given our consent for them to undertake that work going forward, effectively lending them our mandate. That is entirely within our gift and their gift to have that dynamic. We meet them frequently and regularly. We have an ongoing dialogue and conversation over aspects of work going forward. We are having a meeting in a couple of weeks to look at our forward plans this year to see how we can best, what is the word, add value to each other's work and see where the synergies are and not to duplicate. I come back to that point about non-duplication so that we are not doing something that somebody else is doing and they are in the same position. They are not doing something that we are already doing. That is the landscape. We also meet on an annual basis with the Cross-UK and Ireland commissions. In fact, I had a meeting on Monday in Belfast with the Northern Ireland Commission, the Irish Commission for Human Rights, the Equalities Commission in Northern Ireland, Qualities and Human Rights Commission from West Midland, London and ourselves. What are the shared agendas that we have as organisations? You will not be surprised to know coming directly. The second part of your question, Christina, Brexit, the potential British Bill of Rights and the talk about withdrawing from the European Convention was high on that agenda. Of all those organisations, as you can imagine, it has different implications and different jurisdictions around the UK. We are very alive to that and it is a good forum to have those discussions. In fact, we agreed that collectively we would seek a meeting with the Department of withdrawing from the EU, the Brexit department at Westminster, a collective meeting as well as the UK institutions. Ireland felt that they could not contribute to that conversation and to highlight the real human rights concerns that we collectively have. I am pleased that we are doing that. I think that it is important that we do collaborate on this issue because it will have impact right across those UK jurisdictions. That is a partial answer to your question. If you want to go further into the human rights Brexit piece, we can do that. If that answers your question initially. With the UK department on Brexit, we would appreciate some feedback on that if that is possible. That would be very helpful indeed. We are not planning to do that. We are looking to do that sort of before the summer, but not immediately. That would be very helpful indeed. On one of the specific aspects about withdrawal, I hosted an event yesterday organised by Spice, our Scottish Parliament information centre, on Brexit and human rights. One of the speakers on the panel, Dr David Cabrelli from Edinburgh University, had an excellent presentation on labour laws and on workers' rights. Aspects of workers' rights under the Treaty of the Function of the European Union, article 18, 19, 42, 43 and 153, which are the rights to equal pay, the rights to paternity maternity leave and some of those rights. Those are the things that would come back, because the bulk of labour law is reserved to Westminster anyway, and it is Westminster legislation. There is no influence really on that from EU directives, but many of these other things are EU directives, which we have adopted. He painted quite a gloomy picture on that, given past experiences around employment tribunals and the changes that were made to that and the impact that that had on recourse to justice or access to recourse in that sense. He painted quite a gloomy picture. I suppose that my question to you is that there are aspects of the Brexit developments where repatriated powers in that sense, or taking back control, where you would do some work on that. My concern is, in this great repeal bill, that some of that would be lost in the detail, when it is a detail that matters every single day to people's lives, especially in their workplace, not to be discriminated against or not paid adequately, equal pay for equal work and stuff like that. I do not know whether, in your collaboration with some of the other organisations, that is something in that type of detail that you would be taking forward, because, as I say, my concern would be if it is not, it might be lost. Okay, there is a lot in there. I will start with some broad reflections on what Brexit potentially and indeed the Human Rights Act in the European Convention of Human Rights proposals potentially mean for us. As committees well aware, Brexit does pose significant human rights risks, not only through the disapplication of the charter for fundamental rights and the protections that it contains within the scope of EU law, data protection, privacy, fair trial, bioethics, a range of areas where the rights in the charter go beyond that of the European Convention of Human Rights, but also, as you say, in the broad spectrum of EU law. Particularly in the area of equality protections, workforce protections, consumer rights, environmental protections, coming from the EU in the form of directives, regulations and decisions from the court. Also, sitting alongside this, of course, there is this on-going threat to protections given by the Human Rights Act and potentially mooted withdrawal from the European Convention of Human Rights, which is, of course, most deeply concerning. Clearly, it is very difficult to predict at this point exactly what a future human rights landscape will look like. It will be largely dependent on the relationship that we have with the UK to the EU, on what further devolution might look like and on what changes we have to our human rights laws. It is very difficult to predict that at this point in time. The strategy of the commission in very broad terms in dealing with that, there are two things. One, clearly, is that we have to be proactive around looking at, what are the strongest rights protections that we can have in Scotland? What do they look like in this future and changing landscape? Part of that, of course, we will be looking at the full range of rights from civil and political to the economic, social and cultural. Clearly, two of the areas that we, as you have identified, are potentially most at risk and under threat through Brexit are employment protections and equality protections that are currently reserved. As this unfolds, we need to look at the strongest backstop of human rights protections that we can have in Scotland. One is to be proactive around the laws. Part of that is around a greater and deeper public understanding of both what the risks are imposed by Brexit and ECHR withdrawal and what the opportunity is. It is a relatively technical conversation, but that conversation needs to happen more broadly across Scotland. For example, we are looking next month to hold a public event, looking at Brexit, what are the risks, what are the responsibilities, what are the opportunities and having a more public discussion about that. Then it really is around the terms of the debate. Collectively, we need to look at how we have come to a place where there is fertile territory for this type of regression to take place and what part do we all play in changing the terms of that debate. In very broad terms, that is two things that the commission wants to look at in that regard. Just to direct answer to your question around Labour laws and our employment rights, principally that is the remit for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. In relation to equalities and Labour, that, in a sense, is much less clear, because the trade unions, for example, would have a significant role to play. We are having a meeting with the Jimmy Reid Foundation, that public meeting that the committee referred to, to begin to explore some of that in a more public forum. I am not surprised that the predictions were gloomy in relation to the conversation that you were having. That aspect of holding Government to account, Westminster Government to account, I think that the great repeal bill will do something. It is basically saying that, at the moment, its principle seems to be that it won't imply regression on the first day, except what happens after that, when those responsibilities sit wholly within the competence of the UK Government, that we need to be very alert and aware of that. The commission's role in that is to focus primarily on the competence of the Scottish Government and Parliament. As any powers that are repatriated from the EU to Scotland, that would become within our competence. However, we are also enabled to make comment and andro highlight issues from Westminster where they are causing concern in relation to human rights. We will continue to do that, but it is through those collaborations with other partners that we will be able to ensure that we are keeping the human rights dimensions alive within those conversations, as well as the specific issues in relation to qualities and labour rights. Environmental protections and all the other potential dynamics that have knock-on effects of our coming out of the EU. There has been a reasonable amount of work done on that. The Standing Council that is supporting the First Minister has commissioned papers across a range of pieces. We can share that with you if you have not already seen them. However, that is a really good summary of some of the issues that are at stake. It goes beyond labour and equalities but into a whole range of other areas. It is a very moveable feast, is not it? Your last couple of comments feed really well into my final question for you today. It was whether you have used your power to conduct inquiries or intervene. If you haven't, why not, and whether you see in that future landscape, that moveable feast of a landscape, opportunities to do so? In the simplest form, to some degree, the reason we have not used our legal powers of inquiry and intervention are largely because—this is my subjective reading of it, I should say—there has been no real need to. Our reading of our legislation and looking back at the debates at the time when our legislation was passed was that our primary duty under section 2 of the Act is to promote awareness, understanding and respect for human rights and our legal powers underneath that. The commission very much values those powers as giving it the teeth that it needs to do its work properly and has always had an open door to using those powers. In the early days of the commission, the focus, as I think I said before, was very much on understanding what human rights-based approach was and what value it would add and reaching into different settings, particularly within health and social care, to understand what that meant and how you implement rights in practice. Part of that strategy was a counter-narrative, if you like, to the more regressive debate that was emanating from Westminster around the Human Rights Act and its future position within the UK. What we see to a certain extent now is that, while those doors have always been open to us, when we have identified an issue and gone to the relevant public body to talk to them about an issue, there has been a willingness to engage in a human rights discussion to understand how they can embed human rights in their policy development and delivery of services, which has been very welcome. That is what has fed that approach. There is always a concern that we see a degree of superficiality or complacency to that. We see human rights inserted in the top line of strategies or proposals being mooted as being human rights-based when you dig under the surface and you see whether the core principles of human rights-based approach, particularly the participation of those who are experiencing issues and the link to the legal framework and the rights that that contains, is simply not there. That is something that the commission has to counter. That means that, going forward, the commission wants to take an approach that complements that by shining a light on the issues and on what the lived experience of those issues are. For example, in our housing project, we want to go to the houses of people who are experiencing substandard conditions, see what that looks like and feel what that looks like in reality and then go to the duty bearer and say, this is why you have to implement a human rights-based approach. That is what it means in practice. There is an interest in using those powers of inquiry to shine a light on areas of concern as a complementary power, if you like, to our general duty to promote awareness, understanding and respect for human rights. You mentioned a public event next month. Where is that taking place? Are you planning to webcast it or something or film it and put it on your website so that a wider audience can either participate or see it? I am hoping that we will be able to confirm the date and the venue in the next week or so. It will be a Glasgow-based event, hopefully towards mid-February. We are still confirming the venue, as I say, with the Jimmy Reid Foundation, and we will think of ways that we can make that as public as possible. That is what was clear to us in discussions with, because those are quite technical issues. The risks are quite complicated to digest, but there is a real need for that public understanding of exactly what is at stake here. We will be looking to publicly message that as far as we can. A couple of other quick questions. Your organisation works slightly different for the Children's Commissioner, but it is one commissioner. You have a commissioner and some three-part-time members. How do you see that working as opposed to a single commissioner? The other aspect that I touched on at the very start was about resourcing. I know that you have spoken about resourcing in your strategic plan and whether you think that it is sufficient to do the work that you feel you need to do. I will start with the question of resourcing. At the moment, the commission is in a position where the budget, like many other public authorities over the last few years, has been reduced. We are fairly clear in terms of the delivery of our strategic plan and our operational plan. We will do that within the budget that we have, but the budget is small. We have a big mandate and we absolutely have to make, sometimes on a daily basis, strategic choices, hard choices about what we can and cannot do because of the size and scale of the organisation. As you would probably hear from any organisation, we will always do more with more. That is absolutely the case. There are a number of areas where I would use the resource differently. Some of that can happen within our budget parameters, but one of the things that would help and assist that is the flexibility in relation to staffing and the balance of staff costs in relation to non-fix costs and ensuring that we have that flexibility, which is primarily an SPCB responsibility, to marshal our resources best we can within the constraints that we have. We have not made a specific request for more money yet, but it is something that we keep under review. Absolutely, if the opportunity was there to do that, we would be able to ensure that that money was spent furthering the absolutely delivering on the mandate of the organisation. The one point that I would make explicitly—this is again very relevant—is that the increased devolution of powers to the Scottish Government increases the scope and mandate of the commission. There has been no explicit acknowledgement of that through a recognition within the budget that we are dealing with a wider range of issues. Indeed, the development of the new social security powers, for example, is a significant and new taxation powers. There are two key planks of human rights delivery, potentially, within Scotland. At the moment, we are responding to those, but we have had no increased capacity to effectively take that into account. If you have scanned your concluding observations, you will see that your 900 of them are however many there are. You will see that it has indeed been highlighted. In fact, in our letter of accreditation from the UN in relation to our status, it is clear that any further devolution of powers would require looking at our resource base to say that we need to take that into account. We would welcome that should that be on the agenda. That is my fundamental answer to the resource question. We may come back to the committee with a more proactive conversation about that in the coming months and years ahead. In relation to the commission structure, I will be very honest with you. It is not like anything else. It is a unique structure. My limited experience of national human rights institutions around the world is that they are all unique structures and they are all uniquely unique, if that makes sense. There is not a single model, which is the best model. All of them have their challenges, whether that be a single commissioner operating as that, or a hybrid structure like ours, where we have a small number of commissioners supporting a full-time chair. It is not without its challenges, because the dynamics are not the dynamics of the individuals at any level, but the relationship between the strategic and the operational is something that we have to manage effectively. At the moment, the commissioners' times are two and a half days a month, which is why they are not here today, because they are busy people and they have other commitments. It is not that this is not a priority, but coming to the end of the financial year, they really do well more than their hours in terms of the support for the process. In order for us to ensure that we talk as a commission, rather than simply the chair of the commission, we have to engage them in the policy conversations that we are having on a frequent basis. That, in itself, is time-consuming and requires them to engage proactively in the discussions that we are having. We are careful about that. I am always minded that it is not me speaking, it is a commission speaking, it is a group of people. That, in itself, is a draw on resources. It is how it is at the moment. I think that we are managing that reasonably well. I think that commissioners are both engaged in the process of the commission and they support our work proactively. They bring different skills and competence to the commission. We have not had this conversation directly with commissioners prior to hearing, but I am very open to truly looking at that. There is real value in it and it brings challenges as well. It is pros and cons. Is there any other questions from colleagues? No, I think that we have exhausted our questions for you today. Although, probably, absolutely not exhausted our relationship with you, as you understand, a lot of the work programme that we have decided to take on will ensure that we have constant and ongoing engagement with you. We look forward to that. Can we thank you for your evidence this morning, for your report and for the on-going work that we will continue to do on behalf of the committee? Thank you very much. That concludes our evidence in public today. I will suspend the committee and move into private.